pommekate

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You will be covered under Medicare. I had a baby when I was on a temporary visa. The reciprocal agreement is for urgent or necessary treatment. Obstetrics is considered necessary treatment. I also work as a midwife and have cared for many English couples in Australia who are on temporary visas. Like Australian families sometimes there are some costs you have to pay for in some areas such as USS etc.

As others have said definitely take along your pregnancy records from the Uk. You will be offered the opportunity for another elective LSCS if that is your choice. Don't be surprised if most of the midwives that care for you end up being british, I work on a birthing suite with 8 other british midwives. Good luck with the move, a great time to met lots of new mums.

Another point just to mention, if it is a private hospital your wife is being sponsored by she may find it very frustrating as a british trained midwife. As you work as an obstetric nurse rather than a midwife. A midwife will care for a women in labour but as she comes to birth you have to call the obstetrician to actually birth the baby. Initially I was sponsored by a public hospital but after 5 years we moved and I worked for a private hospital, although a very nice hospital but very demoralising as a midwife. Thankfully I am back in the public system.

Yes I was sponsored, so applied for job whilst in the UK and the hospital sponsored me. When I questioned them on relocation costs they said very unlikely as there would be many applicants who would take up the opportunity and pay their own costs, so if i went ahead with the application I would probably be unsuccessful as they would rather sponsor someone who paid their own way. They did tell me not to let this affect me applying but I didn't want to risk not getting the job. I have since asked other midwives to see if they were paid relocation costs and none of them were successful. It may be different if one of the jobs your wife is applying for are in desperately need of midwives. I know some remote areas do offer financial incentives to encourage applicants, however I can't imagine Canberra being one of them. But if she has already been told they will give her a relocation package then go for it and have it written into her contract.

Cost of housing and living would be so much cheaper in Cairns and I think those on 457 visa's don't pay school fees in Queensland and NT, in Canberra it is about $9000-$13000 for each kid. Some people may get this waivered if their occupation appears on the SOL. I am one of 7 british trained midwives where I work, and we were all sponsored by different hospitals not one of us successfully got money to help with relocation. Unless your wife has been head hunted as clinical research midwife or clinical midwife consultant then it may be different. I would be fascinated to hear if any other midwives successfully got relocation costs. Good luck with the move.

My other half use to commute from central coast to Alexandria in Sydney. He worked 6am to 6pm use to leave at 4.30 in the morning and get home at 7.30pm. Thankfully working 12 hour shifts he only had to do it three times a week. But even that was very tiring. Put loads of kilometres on the car and costly on fuel. After 6 years of the commute he took voluntary redundancy. Traffic in north sydney was always a nightmare coming home. Wouldn't recommend it but loads of people do the commute. We eventually moved from the central coast to the mid north coast.

We use to always come here for holidays and loved it so much that we moved here 3 years ago. Truly is paradise. Still feel like we are on holiday. We have a regular Koala that sits in the tree in our back garden. The only down side is job opportunities, unless you work in health, teaching and tourism. We don't have a great variety of shops so do most of my Christmas shopping online. However worth the sacrafice to live in such a beautiful town.

No wasn't urgent. I was expecting a 6 month wait so was surprised myself. One of my friends has recently got citizenship in Port Macquarie and hers took just 10 weeks.

School kids bonus is being phased out, last payment is July 2016.

I did get permanent part of the visa immediately. I had been in Australia for 4 years and had a newborn baby with my aussie other half when I applied. This was 10 years ago, I submitted my application by hand in parramatta and they said could I go back in 3 weeks for an interview with my partner. They didn't really ask any questions they just looked through my application and all the documents. Just out of interest what visa have you been on since your redundancy? Wouldn't your 457 be voided since 2014. Please excuse my ignorance.

When I came out on a 457, it was initially for a year, then after 8 months of working they asked if I wanted to extend it to 4 years. I just presumed they wanted to check out what I was like first. I did have to do my medicals again but that was the only cost I paid. This was 14 years ago.

If your not planning on living in UK at the moment I wouldn't bother getting one. They can use an Australian passport for visits to UK. However it was quite nice not having que in the international passport line at heathrow.

I applied for their passports last year online. I think many years ago british citizenship could only be passed down through the britsh fathers not british mothers. However that has all changed now. If you are a british citizen then your child will automatically be a british citizen. I think I just had to send my british passport and birth certificate along with my childrens application. To be quite honest I do think it was a waste of money as I got them their british passport as we went back to the UK for a holiday and thought it would just be quicker to go through customs. However as my kids were dual Australian/british Nationals, they had to have an australian passport to enter and leave Australia. But they arrived in the Uk on their British passport. So it is quite expensive to have two passports. If your child has Bristish citizenship through hereditary, they can't then pass on British Citizenship to their children. Also British passport doesn't automatically entitle them to NHS, only urgent and necessary treatment, you have to prove residency in the Uk for treatment. That doesn't worry me as I pay taxes in Australia not UK. The babies father needs to sign the application form. it was really easy online, when you apply online you submit it and then it prints out a page that you need to get a British citizen to sign the photographs. You then send that form and birth certificates etc to the UK. It didn't take long at all only about 3 weeks. Can't remember how much I think it was about $100, but you have to send it all recorde delivery. Also when you get passport pictures done you do need to state that it is for a british passport, the sizing was slightly different to australian pictures, (so Australia post told me).

Yes you can. My 3 kids were all born in Australia my other half is australian and I am british, all 3 of my kids have british passports.

I am so glad you are enjoying your travels. What great memories you are creating.

It would be very difficult for your sons because they would have missed GCSE's and not even have HSC if you went this year. I guess as a family only you guys can make the decision but it probably is not the ideal time in their education to go.

Maybe ask for a titre level to be done, as I have heard that single doses are not as efficient as the combined vaccine, not sure if this is supported by medical evidence.. If Titre levels are low I don't see the harm in then having the MMR,, however I am not a Dr or a immunisation nurse. I work as a midwife so I just administer Hep B and vit K to newborns.

Will you be applying for direct entry or post grad midwifery? You won't be entitled to HECS or other government financial support for the course as you have to be a citizen. So you will have to pay for the whole course fees. Good luck, I did my midwifery training in the UK and came out here 14 years ago. One of the reasons I got citizenship was so I could work on doing a Masters in midwifery.

I found citizenship cheaper than RRV. But as you've said you may be running out of time getting it. It really does depend on where you live as to how long it takes, mine took 6 weeks from applying to getting my citizenship ceremony.

I used all certified copies for my citizenship, both birth certificate and name change deed pole. Mine were certified copies of the certified copies. Never had a problem it only took me 6 weeks from applying for citizenship to attending my citizenship ceremony.

I strongly recommend you get your licence before coming to Australia, after passing your test in England you are on a full licence, but here in Australia you will be sit a computer test before getting your L's, then a driving test before getting your red P's, then another computer test before your green P's and after a couple of years get your full licence.

I have loved reading this thread. I saw your posts before you left the UK and suddenly thought last night i wonder how you were getting on, I read the whole thread but then my battery went flat. I think you are pretty amazing travelling around and all these memories you are creating, some good and some bad. Never the less these are all memories that you will look back on. I know lots of people have been giving you advise and some criticise them for giving it but I recently flew back to the UK for a 3 week holiday and the advise i was given on here helped me greatly. i laughed when I read your post and thought wow she is going to Melbourne, then the next page was just booked my flight to Perth. Then to Bali, but it kept me in suspense because I knew the next page you might be somewhere completely different. Enjoy your travels, your posts are far from boring and now I am sounding like a stalker! Enjoy your travels I have travelled the east coast from Port Douglas to Melbourne. Your honesty and saying things how you see it is so endearing. One of my friends managed to travel around Australia not paying for any hostels by house sitting and looking after people's pets. One houses was a mansion in Bondi overlooking the ocean, she stayed there 5 weeks rent free and had to feed their cat and two dogs. She did this all around Australia and stayed in some amazing properties. keep the updates coming you have got me hooked now.

1. Date applied. 04/05//15 2. City/council. Port Macquarie, Hastings council 3 Online/ paper. Online 4 citizenship test 22/05/15 5 citizenship approval 28/05/2015 6. Citizenship ceremony. 22/06/15

When my kids all enrolled for school I had to hand in evidence of immunisation. It is not compulsory but if children are not immunised and there is an outbreak of some disease they may just give you an option to withhold your child from attending. As you have immunised your child you might just have to check which immunisations your child is covered for. In the Uk they don't give the chickenpox vaccination and I'm not sure if they do the Hep B as required for australian children. However being in Thailand she may have had these.